MAY 10TH, 2005 | ARCHIVE

I’m sitting here on the first Spring evening that is seeming to add up to anything. I’m playing When Love Breaks Down by Prefab Sprout on repeat although I don’t particularly have love just now, and if I did then I see no reason why it should break down.

The windows are open and one bird is singing the theme music to TV’s Tom And Jerry. Just the one bird though. It makes me a little sad to think that the cartoon should have made such an impression on the young fowl that he has taken it with him to adulthood at the expense of grown-up conversation. I bet he doesn’t have a girlfriend.

I just had a simple dinner, thrown together. I like simple dinner’s thrown together. Dinners that take no longer than a quick run through Life In A Northern Town or Someone, Somewhere In Summertime, and there you are, ready with an open copy of Optic Nerve in front of you, and the radio switched to Front Row on Radio 4.

I can do both of these things at once because Front Row is a show that reviews books and plays and music, and I can just tune out whenever there is something I’m not interested in. When I’m tidying up they have a piece about Chas And Dave which does interest me to a degree. That’s two blokes from East London who played traditional ‘pub’ type music, but who became very popular in the 70s with their witty lyrics, etc..

My position in the kitchen is perfect, but does not last long. The guy in the flat opposite starts blasting Rock music. That seems to be the rule in the city. When you have a perfect moment, you only have to consider it ‘perfect’ and it will be spoiled soon enough. Oh yes. But then I choose to live in the city.

Marisa calls for the third time in half an hour about some detail or other and I’m short with her on account of the fact that the rock dude has ruined my perfect moment. I moved that Bad Karma on like an Ultimate Frisbee.

I have my Cinnamon Tea here courtesy of the Yogi company. They must have read previous comments in this diary about my affection for their product. They sent a box of tea today. I mean a box! A big box that a child could hide in. I drowned myself in the stuff.

Careful not to call it Chai Tea though. Last time I did that, ‘bemused’ of Linlithgow wrote to say that ‘Chai was tea’ and that in essence I had written about drinking a cup of ‘Tea Tea’ and ‘didn’t I think that was a bit silly’?

When I came in from football today I had an altercation with a pineapple, and the pineapple came off worse. Ever since hearing a Radio 4 broadcast on the subject of pinapples, and the high esteem they were held in, particularly in Victorian society, the Murdoch household has never been without one. Marisa brought this particular one yesterday. I stripped it and prepared it yesterday while pirouetting round my kitchen on the soles of my sandals. Little did I know how desirable those cooled and sealed chunks would seem after two hours of slog on an artificial surface.

I honestly devoured the whole thing without a break, my stomach momentarly distended, like a snake after snacking on whole armadillo. It was like the magic Turkish Delight that The Witch gave Edmund in Narnia, though less wicked. It has to be reported here because I think it ranks as my favourite meal ever! One pinapple!

I’m glad to talk to you. I have been a little fraught of late, but I’m glad to have the energy to come to the table and tell you my troubles and trivialities. I’ve been wrestling with a little suite of a song called The Act Of The Apostle. In fact the whole band have been. It’s very good of them to have the patience.

Right at the minute it does seem to me the most beautiful of possibilities. I just don’t know where to take it next. My trouble I think is that the girl to whom the slight adventure happens, the apostle in question, is young. She bunking off school, and is lured to the city for the day. But she’s too much of an innocent to have the kind of things happen to her that my normal array of wasters let themselves in for. It's weird. In the first verse she's a child, scared about her mum being sick, and by the end she's a young woman travelling through the city to find someone whom she thinks can help her.

I guess I will finish it soon enough. It’s almost like I don’t want to because it is a treat to sing. It’s a musical setting that Stevie provided, that we’ve taken on with melody and arrangement.

I’ve moved back to the kitchen now that things have settled down a little on the ‘Rock’ front. Marisa and Padraig are in the front room now, setting up cameras and things. Marisa has taken upon herself to make a documentary about the girl group project, and she’s interviewing me about it. I might interview Padraig about it after that and then we’ll both interview Marisa. Then maybe we can get some money so that we can turn the idea into a concept.

I’m probably better back in the kitchen. I can still see Jupiter from here.. just. Also, in the front room I spend my time gazing out over the rooftops, and don’t get anything done. I was speaking to this girl the other night, Sally, and she thinks she can see my house from her balcony.

“Oh God, I better be careful, I’m always walking about in the scud in front of the window!”

“Don’t worry about it. My neighbours seen my baps about fifteen times. I’m always sunbathing on my balcony.”

So I’ve been on constant bap patrol since last Thursday. Election Night, as it happened. Not much changed. Blair with a reduced majority; voter apathy. At least that wank Howard never got in. A wank’s always a waste of a good election.

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